Behind Hitler's Lines
Page 37
During those months while hospitalized in Illinois he was invited to homes several times a week, feted on Chicago's Gold Coast, a guest at plays, operas, and even the World Series between Detroit and Chicago, the last time the Cubs were in it.
Postwar reality set in with his courtship of JoAnne Hol-lowell, who worked at Continental Motors. Hero was a status, not an occupation, and an occupation was the first building block he needed when he married in September 1946. Presiding at his wedding was the priest, Father Stratz, who had conducted Joe's funeral mass in September 1944.
Soon the Beyrles became parents in what would be called the baby boom. A major question was what to do with the GI Bill in which all veterans were eligible to participate. Notre Dame was still a possibility, though with a shattered knee Joe's track scholarship was off the table. Mortician's school seemed to promise a more direct payoff. Security was Joe's need now, never a necessity in his past.
Joe immersed himself in peacetime challenges for which his wartime attributes had little apparent application. His experience receded into a reflection of a Steinbeck title, Once There Was a War. Indeed there had been. It was in everyone's immediate memory but rarely evident as the U.S. economy boomed, absorbing the attention and pent-up constructive energy of the veterans.
Gradually and incidentally, further recognition seeped out of war records. It was not till 1953 that Michigan senator Arthur Vandenberg successfully petitioned the army to award Joe the Bronze Star for valor. On V-E Day, however, Joe had his own ceremony of closure.
Muskegon had erected a flagpole with a tablet at the base engraved with the names of some fifty local sons who had lost their lives in World War II. Joe's name was near the top alphabetically. He called up the local Veterans Council and announced his intention to go down to the memorial and remove his name. Regardless of what the city government might think—they'd probably only delay the ceremony bu-reaucratically—the veterans thought this was a great idea and attended in large numbers for the unpublicized, unauthorized ceremony.
Kriege George Rosie reflects on the Joe who emerged from that ceremony:
“He and I have been friends for many years. At times I wonder why because Joe sure has a mind of his own and no one's going to change it. I've gone head to head with him so I'm confident no one has ever backed him down.
“Last year on the phone he told me one of my best friends in the 101st was an SOB. I said if he said that again I'd hang up. He chuckled and said I had a right to my half-ass opinion. That's Joe—he gives and receives a lot of respect.”
The last word goes to Joe as he reflected on removing his name from the tablet of the war dead.
“I had the feeling—it was similar to the near-death experience after my heart bypass—that the occasion had something to say and to listen to. Quiet civilians were all around as I spoke. The long terrible war had just ended in Europe. That we all knew. What I knew which they didn't was how terrible it had been, and I'd seen only samples of the worst.
“Waiting at home the war had been slow for them, but for me it was like a combat jump. Those who were killed disappeared with so many others there was little time to think about them. They are probably greater in death than they were in life, but also many KIAs were better soldiers than many who became vets. It was God's call. What we were doing when I removed my name was remembering without understanding.
“Many people at that ceremony were living with the slow part of remembering. I didn't want that part, didn't feel it was something for me because I'd put it to the touch as the KIAs had. I was living. That's why we were there at the flagpole, to recover my name from those of the dead. I was living and ready to go.
“So I went out fast into the postwar world because I was young, had new responsibilities, and was able to push monsters down into caves. Never went into them till many years later when I felt I could and should.”
I thank Joe for taking me there with him, and for what he did.
“Okay,” Joe concedes, “I showed some courage in World War II. To tell you my story I needed to see if all these years later I could show it again. That's it.”
NOT QUITE. Earlier there had been an unforeseen reunion at the Hubb Recreation Center, where someone asked Joe if he remembered Ed Albers. No, though the name sounded familiar from somewhere. Well, you played against him in basketball, then he went into the Airborne like you. That's him over there shooting pool.
JOE'S STORY JOINS THOSE OF OTHER SCREAMFNG EAGLES, REcounted in films such as Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Presently the 101st is embattled in Afghanistan, as it was in Vietnam and the Gulf War. Readers inspired by this singular fighting force for freedom are invited to contribute to the erection of a monument at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Tax-deductible donations may be sent to
101ST AIRBORNE DIVISION ASSOCIATION
FT. CAMPBELL MEMORIAL MONUMENT FUND
P.O. BOX 101
BENTONVILLE, OH 45105
PHONE: 937-549-4326
E-MAIL: assnl 01 abn@aol.com
There is a 101st website with this address: http://www.screamingeagle.org
A Presidio Press Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2002 by Thomas H. Taylor
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Presidio Press and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
www.presidiopress.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-55458-1
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